Midnight in Death

by J. D. Robb

“Print hard copies of Palmer’s photo.”

  “Already done.”

  “Feeney?”

  “Whittling it down.”

  “Keep whittling. Roarke should have some data on the murder weapon inside a half hour. Send what he has to me in the field, will you? Peabody, you’re with me.”

  The first dealership was a wash, and as she pulled up at the second, Eve sincerely hoped she didn’t have to head to Brooklyn. The shiny new vehicles on the showroom floor had Peabody’s eyes gleaming avariciously. Only Eve’s quick elbow jab kept her from stroking the hood of a Booster-6Z, the sport-utility vehicle of the year.

  “Maintain some dignity,” Eve muttered. She flagged a salesman, who looked none too happy when she flipped out her badge. “I need to talk to the rep who sold a rig like this”—she gestured toward the Booster—“last week. Young guy bought it.”

  “Lana sold one of the 6Zs a few days before Christmas.” Now he looked even unhappier. “She often rounds up the younger men.” He pointed to a woman at a desk on the far side of the showroom.

  “Thanks.” Eve walked over, noting that Lana had an explosion of glossy black curls cascading down her back, a headset over it, and was fast-talking a potential customer on the line while she manually operated a keyboard with fingernails painted a vivid red.

  “I can put you in it for eight a month. Eight a month and you’re behind the wheel of the sexiest, most powerful land and air unit currently produced. I’m slicing my commission to the bone because I want to see you drive off in what makes you happy.”

  “Make him happy later, Lana.” Eve held her badge in front of Lana’s face.

  Lana put a hand over the mouthpiece, studied the ID, cursed softly. Then her voice went back to melt. “Jerry, you take one more look at the video, try out the holo run. If you’re not smiling by the end of it, the 7000’s not the one for you. You call me back and let me know. Remember, I want you happy. Hear?”

  She disconnected, glared at Eve. “I paid those damn parking violations. Every one.”

  “Glad to hear it. Our city needs your support. I need information on a sale you made last week. Booster. You were contacted earlier today and confirmed.”

  “Yeah, right. Nice guy, pretty face.” She smiled. “He knew what he wanted right off.”

  “Is this the guy?” Eve signaled to Peabody, who took out the photo.

  “Yeah. Cute.”

  “Yeah, he’s real cute. I need the data. Name, address, the works.”

  “Sure, no problem.” She turned to her machine, asked for the readout. Then, looking back up at Eve, she narrowed her eyes. “You look familiar. Have I sold you a car?”

  Eve thought of her departmental issue, its sad pea-green finish and blocky style. “No.”

  “You really look—Oh!” Lana lit up like a Christmas tree. “Sure, sure, you’re Roarke’s wife. Roarke’s cop wife. I’ve seen you on screen. Word is he’s got an extensive collection of vehicles. Where does he deal?”

  “Wherever he wants,” Eve said shortly, and Lana let out a gay laugh.

  “Oh, I’m sure he does. I’d absolutely love to show him our brand-new Barbarian. It won’t be on the market for another three months, but I can arrange a private showing. If you’d just give him my card, Mrs. Roarke, I’ll be—”

  “You see this?” Eve took out her badge again, all but pushed it into Lana’s pert nose. “It says ‘Dallas.’ Lieutenant Dallas. I’m not here to liaison your next commission. This is an official investigation. Give me the damn data.”

  “Certainly. Of course.” If her feathers were ruffled, Lana hid it well. “Um, the name is Peter Nolan, 123 East Sixty-eighth, apartment 4-B.”

  “How’d he pay?”

  “That I remember. Straight E-transfer. The whole shot. Didn’t want to finance. The transfer was ordered, received, and confirmed, and he drove off a happy man.”

  “I need all the vehicle information, including temp license and registration number. Full description.”

  “All right. Gee, what’d he do? Kill somebody?”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “Wow.” Lana busily copied the data disc. “You just can’t trust a pretty face,” she said and slipped her business card into the disc pack.

  SEVEN

  Peter Nolan didn’t live at the Sixty-eighth Street address. The Kowaskis, an elderly couple, and their creaky schnauzer had lived there for fifteen years.

  A check of the bank showed that the Nolan account had been opened, in person, on December 20 of that year and closed on December 22.

  Just long enough to do the deal, Eve thought. But where had he gotten the money?

  Taking Roarke’s advice, she rounded out a very long day by starting searches on accounts under the name of Palmer. It would, she thought, rubbing her eyes, take a big slice of time.

  How much time did Carl have? she wondered. Another day, by her guess. If Palmer was running true to form, he would begin to enjoy his work too much to rush through it. But sometime within the next twenty-four hours, she believed he’d try for Justine Polinsky.

  While her machine worked, she leaned back and closed her eyes. Nearly midnight, she thought. Another day. Feeney was working his end. She was confident they’d have a line on the equipment soon, then there were the houses to check. They had the make, model, and license of his vehicle.

  He’d left a trail, she thought. He wanted her to follow it, wanted her close. The son of a bitch.

  It’s you and me, isn’t it, Dave? she thought as her mind started to drift. How fast can I be, and how clever? You figure it’ll make it all the sweeter when you’ve got me in that cage. It’s because you want that so bad that you’re making mistakes. Little mistakes.

  I’m going to hang you with them.

  She slid into sleep while her computer hummed and woke only when she felt herself being lifted.

  “What?” Reflexively she reached for the weapon she’d already unharnessed.

  “You need to be in bed.” Roarke held her close as he left the office.

  “I was just resting my eyes. I’ve got data coming in. Don’t carry me.”

  “You were dead out, the data will be there in the morning, and I’m already carrying you.”

  “I’m getting closer, but not close enough.”

  He’d seen the financial data on her screen. “I’ll take a look through the accounts in the morning,” he told her as he laid her on the bed.

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  He unpinned her badge, set it aside. “Yes, Sheriff, but money is my business. Close it down a while.”

  “He’ll be sleeping now.” She let Roarke undress her. “In a big, soft bed with clean sheets. Dave likes to be clean and comfortable. He’ll have a monitor in the bedroom so he can watch Neissan. He likes to watch before he goes to sleep. He told me.”

  “Don’t think.” Roarke slipped into bed beside her, gathered her close.

  “He wants me.”

  “Yes, I know.” Roarke pressed his lips to her hair as much to comfort himself as her. “But he can’t have you.”

  Sleep helped. She’d dropped into it like a stone and had lain on the bottom of the dreaming pool for six hours. There’d been no call in the middle of the night to tell her Carl Neissan’s body had been found.

  Another day, she thought again and strode into her office. Roarke was at her desk, busily screening data.

  “What are you doing?” She all but leapt to him. “That’s classified.”

  “Don’t pick nits, darling. You were going too broad last night. You’ll be days compiling and rejecting all accounts under the name Palmer. You want one that shows considerable activity, large transfers, and connections to other accounts—which is, of course, the trickier part if you’re dealing with someone who understands how to hide the coin.”

  “You can’t just sit down and start going through data accumulated in an investigation.”

  “Of course I can. You need coffee.” He looked up briefly. “Then
you’ll feel more yourself and I’ll show you what I have.”

  “I feel exactly like myself.” Which, she admitted, at the moment was annoyed and edgy. She stalked to the AutoChef in the kitchen, went for an oversized mug of hot and black. The rich and real caffeine Roarke could command zipped straight through her system.

  “What have you got?” she demanded when she walked back in.

  “Palmer was too simple, too obvious,” Roarke began, and she narrowed her eyes.

  “You didn’t think so yesterday.”

  “I said check for relatives, same names. I should have suggested you try his mother’s maiden name. Riley. And here we have the account of one Palmer Riley. It was opened six years ago, standard brokerage account, managed. Since there’s been some activity over the last six months, I would assume your man found a way to access a ’link or computer from prison.”

  “He shouldn’t have been near one. How can you be sure?”

  “He understands how money works, and just how fluid it can be. You see here that six months ago he had a balance of just over $1.3 million. For the past three years previous, all action was automatic, straight managed with no input from the account holder. But here he begins to make transfers. Here’s one to an account under Peter Nolan, which, by the way, is his aunt’s husband’s name on his father’s side. Overseas accounts, off-planet accounts, local New York accounts—different names, different IDs. He’s had this money for some time and he waited, sat on it until he found the way to use it.”

  “When I took him down before, we froze his accounts, accounts under David Palmer. We didn’t look deeper. I didn’t think of it.”

  “Why should you have? You stopped him, you put him away. He was meant to stay away.”

  “If I’d cleared it all, he wouldn’t have had the backing to come back here.”

  “Eve, he’d have found a way.” He waited until she looked at him. “You know that.”

  “Yeah.” She let out a long breath. “Yeah, I know that. This tells me he’s been planning, he’s been shopping, he’s been juggling funds, funneling into cover accounts. I need to freeze them. I don’t think a judge is going to argue with me, not after what happened to one of their own.”

  “You’ll piss him off.”

  “That’s the plan. I need the names, numbers, locations of all the accounts you can connect to him.” She blew out a breath. “Then I guess I owe you.”

  “Use your present, and we’ll call it even.”

  “My present? Oh, yeah. Where and/or when do I want to go for a day. Let me mull that over a little bit. We get this wrapped, I’ll use it for New Year’s Eve.”

  “There’s a deal.”

  A horrible thought snuck into her busy mind. “We don’t have like a thing for New Year’s, do we? No party or anything.”

  “No. I didn’t want anything but you.”

  She looked back at him, narrowing her eyes even as the smile spread. “Do you practice saying stuff like that?”

  “No.” He rose, framed her face and kissed her, hard and deep. “I have all that stuff on disc.”

  “You’re a slick guy, Roarke.” She skimmed her fingers through her hair and simply lost herself for a moment in the look of him. Then, giving herself a shake, she stepped back. “I have to work.”

  “Wait.” He grabbed her hand before she could turn away. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. It just comes over me sometimes. You, I guess, come over me sometimes. I don’t have time for it now.”

  “Darling Eve.” He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “Be sure to make time later.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  They worked together for an hour before Peabody arrived. She switched gears, leaving Roarke to do what he did best—manipulate data—while she focused on private residences purchased in the New York area, widening the timing to the six months since Palmer had activated his account.

  Feeney called in to let her know he’d identified some of the equipment from the recording and was following up.

  Eve gathered her printouts and rose. “We’ve got more than thirty houses to check. Have to do it door-to-door since I don’t trust the names and data. He could have used anything. Peabody—”

  “I’m with you, sir.”

  “Right. Roarke, I’ll be in the field.”

  “I’ll let you know when I have this wrapped.”

  She looked at him, working smoothly, thoroughly, methodically. And wondered who the hell was dealing with what she often thought of as his empire. “Look, I can call a man in for this. McNab—”

  “McNab.” Peabody winced at the name before she could stop herself. She had a temporary truce going with the EDD detective, but that didn’t mean she wanted to share her case with him. Again. “Dallas, come on. It’s been so nice and quiet around here.”

  “I’ve got this.” Roarke shot her a glance, winked at Peabody. “I have an investment in it now.”

  “Whatever. Shoot me, and Feeney, the data when you have it all. I’m going to check out the rope, too. He likely picked up everything himself, but it would only take one delivery to pin down his hole.”

  After three hours of knocking on doors, questioning professional parents, housekeepers, or others who chose the work-at-home route, Eve took pity on Peabody and swung by a glide cart.

  In this neighborhood the carts were clean, the awnings or umbrellas bright, the operators polite. And the prices obscene.

  Peabody winced as she was forced to use a credit card for nothing but coffee, a kabob, and a small scoop of paper-thin oil chips.

  “It’s my metabolism,” she muttered as she climbed back into the car. “I have one that requires fuel at regular intervals.”

  “Then pump up,” Eve advised. “It’s going to be a long day. At least half these people aren’t going to be home until after the five o’clock shift ends.”

  She snagged the ’link when it beeped. “Dallas.”

  “Hello, Lieutenant.” Roarke eyed her soberly. “Your data’s coming through.”

  “Thanks. I’ll start on the warrant.”

  “One thing—I didn’t find any account with a withdrawal or transfer that seemed large enough for a purchase or down payment on a house. A couple are possible, but if, as you told me, he didn’t finance a car, it’s likely he didn’t want to deal with the credit and Compuguard checks on his rating and background.”

  “He’s got a damn house, Roarke. I know it.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. I’m not convinced he acquired it recently.”

  “I’ve still got twenty-couple to check,” she replied. “I have to follow through on that. Maybe he’s just renting. He likes to own, but maybe this time he’s renting. I’ll run it through that way, too.”

  “There weren’t any standard transfers or withdrawals that would indicate rent or mortgage payments.”

  She hissed out a breath. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “What?”

  “How good a cop you’d make.”

  “I don’t think insulting me is appropriate under the circumstances. I have some business of my own to tend to,” he said when she grinned at him. “I’ll get back to yours shortly.”

  Palmer had purchased, and personally picked up, a hundred twenty yards of nylon rope from a supply warehouse store off Canal. The clerk who had handled the sale ID’d the photo and mentioned what a nice young man Mr. Dickson had been. As Dickson, Palmer had also purchased a dozen heavy-load pulleys, a supply of steel O rings, cable, and the complete Handy Homemaker set of Steelguard tools, including the accessory laser package.

  The entire business had been loaded into the cargo area of his shiny new Booster-6Z—which the clerk had admired—on the morning of December 22.

  Eve imagined Palmer had been a busy little bee that day and throughout the next, setting up his private chamber of horrors.

  By eight they’d eliminated all the houses on Eve’s initial list.

  “That’s it.” Eve climbed back i
n her vehicle and pressed her fingers to her eyes. “They all check out. I’ll drop you at a transpo stop, Peabody.”

  “Are you going home?”

  Eve lowered her hands. “Why?”

  “Because I’m not going off duty if you’re starting on the list of rentals I ran.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Peabody firmed her chin. Eve could arrow a cold chill up your spine when she took on that superior-officer tone. “I’m not going off duty, sir, to leave you solo in the field with Palmer on the loose and you as a target. With respect, Lieutenant.”

  “You don’t think I can handle some little pissant, mentally defective?”

  “I think you want to handle him too much.” Peabody sucked in a breath. “I’m sticking, Dallas.”

  Eve narrowed her eyes. “Have you been talking to Roarke?” At the quick flicker in Peabody’s eyes Eve swore. “Goddamn it.”

  “He’s right and you’re wrong. Sir.” Peabody braced for the explosion, was determined to weather it, then all but goggled with shock.

  “Maybe,” was all Eve said as she pulled away from the curb.

  Since she was on a roll, Peabody slanted Eve a look. “You haven’t eaten all day. You didn’t even steal any of my oil chips. You could use a meal.”

  “Okay, okay. Christ, Roarke’s got your number, doesn’t he?”

  “I wish.”

  “Zip it, Peabody. We’ll fuel the metabolism, then start on the rental units.”

  “Zipping with pleasure, sir.”

  EIGHT

  It began to snow near midnight, fat, cold flakes with icy edges. Eve watched it through the windshield and told herself it was time to stop. The night was over. Nothing more could be done.

  “He’s got all the cards,” she murmured.

  “You’ve got a pretty good hand, Dallas.” Peabody shifted in her seat, grateful for the heat of the car. Even her bones were chilled.

  “Doesn’t matter what I’ve got.” Eve drove away from the last rental unit they’d checked. “Not tonight. I know who he is, who he’s going to kill. I know how he does it and I know why. And tonight it doesn’t mean a damn thing. Odds are, he’s done with Carl now.”